William Hay, winner of 3 Kenneth R. Wilson Writing Awards and Folio Award, Canadian Author Association member,author of Caesarean Section and Love Between the Sacred and Profane poetry books, and Psychiatry and Addiction, Personal Perspective book, magazine short story and prose columnist.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Dad, RCAF Lancaster Bombadier

Almost every time I visit Dad he says he'd like to go to the Canadian Aviation Museum. Then he wants to see the Lancaster Bomber. He was a bombadier in this plane but that's not what seems to keep bringing him back. His neighbour growing up, where they shared a one room school house in Swan River, Manitoba was a fellow Bill Attlesee. I don't even know if I have the spelling right. Well, every time we go Dad wants to see the rear gunner position of Lancaster. He himself was midships. "Billy went on two or three tours as a gunner....he'd sit right in there....the German planes would come right up under the plane." I like the exhibit at the Vancouver Aviation Museum. Dad's always sad though after we visit and then needs to rest some before he perks up again. Something about the memories. Nostalgia being what it is.

About Me

I began writing travel stories in grade 3. My mother was a journalist. I started publishing poetry and photography in high school. Dancing and acting followed with study in England with the world champion after bicycling across Europe. Medical school was also a time of canoeing and cross country skiing. Dad was a great outdoorsman. Country general practice was followed by northern fly in medicine. Completing a medicine fellowship and specializing in psychiatry, I did my California medical examinations before returning north to British Columbia where I began big game hunting, chicken farmed and sailed. Eventually, I solo sailed to Hawaii through winter storms. An island psychiatrist in Saipan, the weekly scuba diving was spectacular.Back in Canada, living on the sailboat,my Harley Davidson motorcycle became a whole new source of adventure.
Raised Baptist, I taught sunday school for the United Church and eventually became Anglican a decade back. Bible study, Yogananda, Tai Chi, AA, celtic and native studies all added to that ecumenical Christian spirituality.
Blessed by a loving family, beautiful partners, friends, pets and resilient house plants, life's a miracle.